Actor Soha Ali Khan, who has turned author with her upcoming book The Perils Of Being Moderately Famous, tells us why she chose to write a book, and the story behind the interesting title.

Actor Soha Ali Khan, has turned author with her upcoming book The Perils Of Being Moderately Famous.(Raajessh Kashyap/HT)

Being the daughter of two legends, sister to a superstar, and an established actor herself — actor Soha Ali Khan must have many tales to share about her starry life. But is everything necessarily rosy about stardom? In her upcoming book, The Perils Of Being Moderately Famous, the actor-turned-author talks about her experiences as a ‘modern-day princess’. After all, she belongs to the Nawab family of Pataudi!

Soha, who welcomed her first child, daughter Inaaya with husband, actor Kunal Kemmu, on September 29, shares that the book is her way of revealing her “real self” to the world. “A lot of people have misconceptions about who I am as a person, what kind of upbringing I had, and how’s it belonging to a famous family where everyone is a bit of a superstar — my brother (actor Saif Ali Khan), mother (actor Sharmila Tagore), father (Nawab Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi) and sister-in-law (actor Kareena Kapoor Khan). But when they meet me, they are like ‘You aren’t like what I expected’. I thought it would be nice to give people an insight into what it’s like to be me,” says the 39-year old.

Talking about how the idea came about to write a book, Soha, who was sceptical even after she started penning it, says, “I was a student of History in college, so we had to write a lot of essays, and since then a lot of people said you write so well, you should write a book some day. Of course, I love reading, but I have always said that there’s a great difference between being a good reader and being able to write.”

Book cover of The Perils Of Being Moderately Famous.

“The publishers came to me with a proposition to publish my book and said that ‘We hear you are intelligent, maybe we could work with you’. At that time, it sounded really daunting, to be able to write 40,000-50,000 words. I didn’t know if I had it in me, so I asked if I could write just one chapter and send it to the editor first. She like them, and so I started writing it and finished a couple of months ago,” reveals Soha, adding that she was not keen to write fiction.

“There are chapters from my life — childhood and college days, travel, films, the Pataudi lineage, and our relationship with [legendary author] Rabindranath Tagore,” she says.

Asked about the interesting title, she replies modestly, “Everyone in my family is an achiever, but though not entirely non-famous, I am certainly not of that calibre of fame”, and hence the title ‘moderately famous’.”